Daily Yellowstone journal., 1887-09-03
THE PEOPLE or MEXICO.
How They Appeared TO . Cincinnatians
The Trade In Mahogany.

The Trade In Mahogany.
'From the city of Mexico" says Mr..
d. E. Kline, who has lately been in
Mexico, ~ went on to Vera Cruz, and
there / took a steamer for Minatitlan.
The boat was a clumsy, old fashioned
affair, originally from the United States,
and made as high Us six miles an hour.
But ! had to stand it without saying q
word. Indeed, the fact is l was speech
less for a whole day-had to be, unless I
chose to talk to myself, for nobody I'M
derstood English, and my Castilian was
not of the latest improved accent. We
reached Minatitlan after a rough time Of
it, twenty miles Of the voyage being up
the C~oatzacoalcos river, on the Isthmus
Of T~ehuantepec. BY the way, Minatitlan
is the point which Eads proposed al the
eastern terminus of his ship railway. It
contains about 1900 people, and does q
very fair business in cedar, mahogany
and skins. The people are q mixture Of
Mexican, or Indian and Spanish. They
look with some contempt on the immi-
grants from CASTLE and Aragon, and
claim to speak a purer Spanish than that
heard in Madrid. There we're some nice
people in Minatitlan, but there were GER
tain numerous natives who didn't strike
my civilized fancy with particular favor.
They came in during the week from the
back country, and they were q sight.
They frequently walked forty miles,
bringing their market truck and oysters in
N harnpar 4- thatr kaAIo The I~... -
the men usually consisted of a cotton
shirt and cotton pants, the latter rolled
up to the knee, and a rough straw hat.
They wore leather sandals generally.
The women had blankets wrapped about
their waists and a sort of jacket, which
they wore ~innocently loose. As often as
not the sleeves were tied about their
necks, with their bare arms and bosoms
exposed to the hot sun. They would
travel a two days journey to sell enough
to bring them thirty-fve cents.
''They don't care a New Orleans plea
yune for money down there, and won't
make any effort to accumulate. You
couldn't talk thrift to them any more than
you could talk religion. They don't want
either. They are content with mere ami
NAL existence, and that is maintained
without work. Wild fruits will sustain
them nearly all the year round. Their
great staple is .frijoles'-in other words,
beans. Frequently they make a corn
cake, which they call 'tortilla, and it is
palatable, although it is made without
salt. 1t is usually about as thin as a sheet
Of paper, and it is passed, when it is meal,
through a solution Of lye to cut the corn
shell. The people are too lazy to prepare
an elaborate meal-I may say, indeed,
they are too lazy to eat one, were it pre-
pared for them. They won't rob, because
it is o much trouble. Your enterprising
burglar in the United States is a man
full Of business, and has more to think of
than the average banker. But it is a fact
that the native Minatitlans wouldn't run
away with a big bag Of Mexican dollars if
it were lying in the street, and nobody
was looking, for it would be an effort to
carry it off, and would involve some
trouble to conceal it. ! was in a mer-
chants room there when there were
100000 piled up in common sacks and
the only thing done at night was to lock
the wooden doors with heavy bolts and
let a porter sleep-and the Mexicans al
ways sleep-in the court over the way"
This is not Mr.. Kline's first visit to
Mexico, and he seems to have been quite
observant and inquisitive. II don't see
how we can have any very intimate rela-
tons with Mexico-they have very little
down there that we want. They look
upon France, Germany and England as
closer to them than the United States,
and all their wooden importations come
from those countries. They fight shy Of
Spain, somehow, and don't regard her as
a cousin. A great deal of mahogany goes
to Europe, but a big pile comes to Gin
cinnau. The forests are i~nexhaustible,
but they are getting further and further
from the centers Of transportation, and
the Mexicans do not run a railroad after
something they want, as we here in the
United States do. The mahogany trees
are generally back from the coast and are
cut slowly. The logs are dragged by oxen
TO some water course and the freshets
are waited for 20 float them off to the
large rivers. They lie in the rivers for a
long time, and very deep down, so that
the wood is generally splendidly seasoned
and ripened in color by the action Of the
water. We are having no difficulty as
yet in getting all the wood we want for
the United States, but if there should be
a craze for mahogany as there is for oak,
1t might get scarce, and northern enter
prise would hardly revolutionize the
methods Of those snails in the backwoods
of Mexico who cut the beautiful timber.
The hewers are an uncivilized race, and
civilized people almost never leave the
coast and risk the danger of an inroad
upon them. They are armed to the teeth,
do not seem TO be subject to any law,
and, though not quarrelsome, think
nothing of human life. They have con-
trolled the Mexican forests for centuries,
and will probably maintain control to the
end Of this one. Therefore mahogany
will not be used soon for making kitchen
tables. "-Cincinnati Commercial Ga
zette. 4